Author: Akumaa GhanaMPs

The Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho, Thursday visited the family of the late Jones Kugblenu who was the Director of Public Affairs of the legislative house.4

He was accompanied by his deputy, Hon. Ebo Barton-Odro, Clerk of Parliament, Mr. Emmanuel Anyimadu, Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Deputy Minority Leader, Dominic Nitiwul, Minority Chief Whip, Dan Botwe, deputy Director of Public Affairs, Kate Addo, some members of the Parliamentary Press Corps (PPC) including the Dean, Andrew Edwin-Arthur and some other staff of legislature.5

Having gone round to extend his condolences to the wife and children as well as some extended family members of the deceased, the Speaker then spent some time to pray with them.

He later signed the book of condolence in honour of the departed soul who he described as a “friend and a brother.”

Mr. Kugblenu died in the United Kingdom on Monday, August 24, 2015 after battling with a kidney problem.

Kwadwo Anim/Ghanamps.gov.gh

A member of Parliaments Defense and Interior Committee, Major Derek Oduro says the nation must be troubled by reports that a Ghanaian graduate has joined militant group in the Middle East, ISIS.

“We should be very much troubled if we have a situation where graduates from Ghana who have no work here are trooping to join terrorist groups, we have cause to worry.”

A 25-year- old Ghana graduate from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Nazir Nortei Alema is said to have sent a message to his family announcing his decision to join the dreaded group.

His father, Abdul Latif Alema has appealed to the media and security agencies to help locate his son.

He said the messages they received from Nazir suggests that he may be mentally challenged.

According to Latif Alema, several other graduates have been reported missing in the last few months and are believed to have also joined ISIS.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Major Derek Oduro who is also the Member of Parliament for Nkoranza North noted that the matter poses a great threat security threat to Ghana.

This he said is because “when they go and succeed, one day they may come back and it will be a bad situation for Ghana.”

“It is either they will bring the terrorist group here or this place could be turned into a training ground or recruitment centre for terrorists. So either of these situations will not be good for Ghana so we have cause to worry about that.”

By:citifmonline.com

The Minority in Parliament has urged the government to make swift interventions in the country’s agriculture to help boost production levels which have for the past six years experience a dip.

They contend that the government’s overreliance on the emergence oil and gas industry is hurting other sectors of the economy, especially, the agricultural sector.

That aside, proceeds from the country’s oil industry meant to finance agriculture has not been forthcoming as expected.

“The Petroleum Management Act (ACT 815) requires the Minister of Finance to select four economic priority areas for allocation of the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA). Since the allocation of the ABFA started in 2011, only 8.5% of the total has so far been allocated to Agriculture.”

“With the initial allocation of GH₵204million in 2015, only GH₵26.2million of the ABFA had been released to Agriculture at the end of June 2015. This was to settle the debt on the 2013 fertilizer subsidy program. This clearly indicates the level of priority government gives to the farmers and fisherfolks of this country,” they contended.

To them, growth in agriculture is stagnating, a case they noted, has resulted in the dwindling fortunes of the economy and left many households in abject poverty.

Addressing a press conference in Goaso on Tuesday, the Minority Spokesman on Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu-Afriyie Akoto, said government has over the years been implementing misguided policies and poor projects in the sector which employs about 60% of the Ghanaian population.

“Ghana’s agriculture is not growing. If agricultural growth is stagnating then it means industry, especially the agro- industry cannot grow. The combined effect of this is that employment cannot be generated. Farmers make up about 60% of the country’s populace. If agriculture is not growing, then it means the poverty of the people will not be alleviated,” he said.

According to Dr. Akoto, growth in the sector declined from 7.4% in 2008 to 7.2% in 2009, and further experienced a dip to 5.2% in 2010.

Growth in 2011 was nothing to write home about as the sector recorded 0.8%.

In 2012, the sector recorded 2.3% growth and partially recovered in 2013 and 2014 by attaining 5.2% and 5.3% respectively.

“The growth experienced in 2012 and 2013 was in large part, on account of unprecedented growth in forestry and logging activities.”

“If logging activities are dramatically increasing without commensurate growth in reafforestation, the obvious implication is that we are further degrading our forest cover and opening the country up to the invasion of savanna and sahelian conditions.”

The crop sub-sector which engaged most of the 4.5 million farmers in the country, according to Dr. Akoto, recorded growth of only 3.6 per cent in 2014.

The 2015 Budget Statement expects a 5.8 per cent growth in agriculture; however, Dr Akoto said that target was overstated because there was a sharp decline in cocoa production to less than 700,000 metric tons in the 2014/2015 cocoa season coupled with the rising retail price of fertilizers and other farm inputs.

Kwadwo Anim/GhanaMPs.gov.gh

The Director of Public Affairs for the Parliament of Ghana, Mr Jones Kugblenu is dead.

The unfortunate incident occurred Tuesday at an unknown hospital in the United Kingdom (UK) where he had been seeking health care.

Mr Kugblenu has been on sick leave for over a year now, battling a kidney problem.

Prior to assuming his position as spokesperson to for Parliament, Mr Kugblenu worked with Ghana Television for several years.

Kwadwo Anim/GhanaMPs.gov.gh

Mr Boniface Gambila, Member of Parliament for Nabdam Constituency, has requested the Government to swiftly step in to save the Nabdam District in the Upper East Region from an invasion of black flies.

“We are suffering. The Government must quickly step in; for we as a people, and individuals cannot do anything. Our fate is to be bitten by the black flies and suffer from glaucoma,” the MP told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in a telephone interview.

The MP said he was at a loss why early warning systems for checking the flies are not working.

“We can’t do anything here, only to spend working time to fan and drive away the black flies, and yet the Government has for the past six years collected more than GHC 400,000 at source from the District Assemblies’ Common Fund for the Nabdam District towards fumigation and environmental sanitation,” he said.

He added:” This is not an individual affair, it affecting the people living along the Red Volta, and in the forest and the bushes. It is affecting farming and food production.“

Mr Gambila, therefore, urged the Government to account for the monies collected, and use it to stem the loosing disaster of black fly invasion, and its rippling effects such as food shortages and poverty in the area.

The Legislator recalled that Government had in the past, in the 1970s and 1980s depended on international organizations to address the problem of the files and queried why the exercise had not continued for some years now.

He said the fumigation exercise helped to weaken the flies, but they were now in full force in the area, and hence the need to conduct more fumigation exercises now.

Mr Gambila also asked for fairness on the part of Government to bring back the contractors working on roads in the District, which have been suspended since 2009 on the excuse of lack of funds.

He asked the Government to explain the suspension of works on roads in the Nabdam District, arguing that, some roads in the southern sector are still being worked on at a time when funds are said to be unavailable.

GNA